As a founder member of Mystery Women in 1997, promoting Crime Fiction has always been my passion.
Following the closure of Mystery Women, a new group was formed on 30th January 2012 promoting crime fiction.
New reviews are posted daily, but to search for earlier reviews please click on the Mystery People link below and select 'reviews' from the welcome page. This will display an alphabetic option for you to find the review you would like to read

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Tuesday, 27 May 2014

Published by Allison and Busby, 20 March
2014. ISBN: 978-0-7490-1443-8

House-sitter Thea
Osborne is all set for a quiet Christmas house-sitting for the Shepherds in the
village of Stanton.All her duties are, apart from her mere presence being to ward off
burglars, to walk Blondie the great Dane and feed, water and let out to play –
the rats.Sounds pretty simply, well
apart from the rats!

Her employers have hardy left when a funeral cortègeappears.Thea discovers that the funeral is of a local businessman, but oddly that
one half of the funeral is taking place at the home of his wife and the other
half at the home of his mistress – next door to Thea.

Settling in for Christmas Thea finds herself with a tickly
throat, but we all know that feeling, soon it is a fully fledged sore throat and ‘flu.In the circumstances it would be simple for
Thea to take to her bed and hunker down with a few lem-sips.But circumstances dictate otherwise.

Soon Thea despite her ‘flu is in the thick of it. Local man
Dennis Ireland seems to be a staunch ally but is he?With yet another dead body on her doorstep, Thea
knows not which way to turn.Even the
unexpected presence of Drew doesn’t help. Thea questions everything and nothing
seems right.

I so greatly enjoy this series and I felt for Thea trying to
battle along with the ‘flu and hoping that someone could just take it away and
make it all right, but life isn’t like that – as Thea discovers.Terrific entry in this series. One that kept
me guessing to the end. No change there. Highly recommended.

------

Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Rebecca Tope is the
author of three popular murder mystery series, featuring Den Cooper, Devon police detective, Drew Slocombe, Undertaker, and
Thea Osborne, house sitter in the Cotswolds. Rebecca grew up on farms, first in
Cheshire then in Devon, and now lives in rural
Herefordshire on a smallholding situated close to the beautiful Black Mountains.

Besides "ghost writer" of the novels based on the
ITV series Rosemary and Thyme. Rebecca is also the proprietor of a small press
- Praxis Books. This was established in 1992

Sunday, 25 May 2014

It is December 1858 and, for the
first time, Charlotte Richmond's life is blissfully settled and secure. Charlotte is living in
Hampshire with her late, (and unlamented) husband's family. Her brother-in-law,
his wife and their young son occupy the big house and Charlotte and her
wealthy, good-hearted grandmother-in-law live in the Dower House. Only two
things mar Charlotte's contentment: the illness
of her dearest friend, Elaine Knightley and the ever-present fear that somebody
from her shady past in Australia
will appear to destroy her good reputation.

Her brother-in-law,
Barnard, and his wife, Lily, are celebrating the christening of their infant
son and have secured illustrious godparents for the child in the shape of Lord
and Lady Granville, the most important family in the neighbourhood. Recently,
scandal and fear have stalked the neighbourhood because Lady Granville's
elderly personal maid has been found murdered. When Charlotte
meets Lady Granville, she swiftly realises there are two things she cares about
passionately: her young son, Oz, and the medieval garden she has created in the
style of Queen Eleanor of Provence.

At the christening party,
strange events occur. There is an unfortunate incident outside the church,
involving a push of people and an open grave. At the party a guest is taken
ill, but nobody suspects anything as he is elderly and not in good health. Far
more serious is the death, the next day, of a healthy young lady, poisoned,
apparently by the wassail cup that Barnard had served to his guests.

Charlotte is invited to visit Lady
Granville and inspect her garden. She admires the garden and soon grows fond of
young Oz Granville, a lonely, cosseted child. As the incidents continue, Charlotte comes to
suspect that Oz is the intended target and is determined to make sure that he
is safe. When Charlotte
discovers who is behind the murders she finds herself in imminent danger and is
forced to defend herself with a most unusual, not to say bizarre, weapon.

The Dead Queen's Garden is the third book in the
Charlotte Richmond series and the author shows great skill in providing
background information without revealing too much. It is a funny book, which
often moves into farce, but it has a fast-moving mystery and some warmly
engaging characters. It also contains all the average reader will want to know
about historical subjects ranging from medieval gardens to rat-hunting. I have
read the first two books and particularly liked the way the characters have
grown and, in most cases, become more likeable as Charlotte's relationship with them grows
warmer. The Dead Queen's Garden is fast-moving, humorous, historical
crime story. It is a very good read and I would recommend it.

-----

Reviewer: Carol Westron

Nicola Sladewas brought up in Poole, Dorset.
She wrote children’s stories when her three children were growing up, moving
onto short stories for several national magazines. Winning a story competition
in Family Circle galvanised her into writing seriously and since then her
stories and articles have been commissioned regularly. Scuba Dancin, a romantic comedy was her first published novel. After
that she wrote a series of Victorian mysteries: Murder Most Welcome published by Robert Hale Ltd, 2008, featuring
Charlotte Richmond, a young widow in the 1850s. Charlotte also features in the second of the
series: Death is the Cure, also
published by Robert Hale Ltd, at the end of 2009. The third of Charlotte's adventures,The Dead Queen's Garden, will be
published in December 2013. Murder
Fortissimo, also published by Robert Hale Ltd, came out at the end of
January 2011. This is a contemporary 'cosy' crime novel, featuring former
headmistress, Harriet Quigley, and her sidekick and cousin, Rev Sam Hathaway. A Crowded Coffin', is the second
adventure for Harriet and Sam. Nicola, her
husband and their cat live near Winchester
in Hampshire.

Find out more about Nicola atblog:www.nicolaslade.wordpress.com

Carol Westronis a successful short story writer and a Creative
Writing teacher.She is the moderator
for the cosy/historical crime panel, The Deadly Dames.Her crime novels are set both in contemporary
and Victorian times.The Terminal
Velocity of Cats is the first in her Scene of Crimes novels, was published
July 2013

Saturday, 24 May 2014

Published by Constable and Robinson Ltd,
September 2013. ISBN: 978-1780337791

St Andrews: championship golf course, high-profile university, beautiful town in
equally beautiful setting. It’s a place I’ve never visited, but that’s the image
it presents. It has always struck me as a quiet, rural sort of place,
especially since it was deemed a suitable location for the once-removed heir to
the throne to complete his education.

After
reading T F Muir’s Life for a Life, I began to think Prince William was
lucky to escape with his skin intact. It starts with the discovery of the
battered body of a young girl, and gets steadily bloodier. Enter DCI Andy
Gilchrist, to head up the murder enquiry.

Muir
is an author who doesn’t pull his punches. Graphic descriptions of murdered
bodies abound. The reader is subjected, along with the protagonist, to a
detailed, gory account of a video of a killing by decapitation. And the body
count, for a quiet, rural sort of place, is phenomenal.

Apparently
this peaceful corner of Scotland – which Muir brings to shivering life in the
course ofan Arctic winter – is a hotbed
of organized crime: rape, people trafficking, prostitution, gang warfare: you
name it, St Andrews is rife with it.

As
fictional detectives go, Gilchrist isn’t out of the ordinary: dysfunctional
family, failed marriage, a bit too fond of a dram, ill at ease with his
feelings. It’s the supporting characters who provide the spice of variety,
especially the women in his life. There’s Nance, detective sergeant, and
clearly part of his emotional history. Becky Cooper, glamorous pathologist, is
the current temptation, but unfortunately married. And Jessie Janes, another
detective sergeant and newly arrived from Glasgow,
is mouthy and abrasive with family and secrets which make her almost as
dysfunctional as Glichrist himself.

The
narrative is peppered with equally interesting minor players. On the side of
the angels are Mhairi, detective constable, who stays mainly in the background
but reveals hidden depths, luckily for her boss; Jackie the disabled
researcher; and Janes’s teenage son, profoundly deaf Robert with a talent for
writing comedy, who has huge potential for development. The bad guys are
equally well drawn, from Angus the hapless estate agent through provocative
Caryl Dillanos to Kumar, the pyschopathic criminal mastermind who remains a
shadow until... well, you’ll have to read it to find out.

It’s
the fourth in a series, well written though a little inclined towards
over-explanation in places, and there are references throughout to
investigations and relationships in the earlier books. Given the picturesque
surroundings and the colourful cast, Gilchrist is a cop who is ripe for the TV
treatment; John Hannah springs to mind, though David Tennant would do nicely is
he was free. Though perhaps viewers could do without quite as much gory detail.

------

Reviewer: Lynne
Patrick

T F Muir Born in Glasgow,
Scotland, Frank
was plagued from a young age with the urge to see more of the world than the
rain sodden slopes of the Campsie Fells. By the time he graduated from
University with a degree he hated, he’d already had more jobs than the River
Clyde has bends. Short stints as a lumberjack in the Scottish Highlands
and a moulder’s labourer in the local foundry convinced Frank that his degree
was not such a bad idea after all. Thirty-plus years of living and
working overseas helped him appreciate the raw beauty of his home
country. Now a dual US/UK citizen, Frank makes his home in the outskirts
of Glasgow, from where he visits St Andrews regularly to carry out some serious research
in the old grey town’s many pubs and restaurants. Frank is working hard
on his next novel, another crime story suffused with dark alleyways and cobbled
streets and some things gruesome.

http://www.frankmuir.co.uk

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen,
and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but
never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher
for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now
burgeoning. She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with
books, about half of them crime fiction.

Friday, 23 May 2014

If the name sounds
familiar you are correct - this is the Golden Age detective writer Margery
Allingham's aristocratic detective, Albert Campion resurfacing! As the
book cover puts it 'Margery Allingham's Albert Campion returns in Mr Campion's Farewell. When
Margery Allingham died in 1966, her widower, Philip Youngman Carter completed
her book, Cargo of Eagles, and wrote 2 more Campion books - Mr Campion's Farthing and Mr Campion's Falcon - then he died in
1969 leaving a fragment of manuscript for a third book. It is this book
that Mike Ripley offered to complete for the Margery Allingham Society who own
the manuscript. Mike is, of course, an accomplished writer of detective
fiction in his own right and a devoted fan of Margery Allingham.

Mike modestly disclaims any attempt to recreate Margery's
style but, it seems to me, that he and Philip Youngman Carter (whose style and
approach Mike does follow) have caught many of the qualities of Margery's
original character of Albert Campion and her light hearted style of
presentation.

We begin in September 1969 in the traditional English village of Lindsay Carfax with its cutesy ambience.
Albert's niece, an artist, is living there and participating in the local
tradition of serving the tourists, in her case by painting copies of landscapes
that could possibly be Old Masters though not guaranteed as such to the buyer.
The village is run not by a parish council but by a group known as the
Carders which has some connection to wool and an apparent fixation on the
number nine. On a visit to see his niece, Eliza Jane, Campion has
several misadventures which build up his suspicions of malpractice while
puzzling him further as to the nature of the problem.

There are here the Allingham features of mystifying and
unconnected happenings, a convincing period atmosphere and witty repartee.
The story reaches a satisfying and thrilling climax leaving Albert,
though rather battered by his experiences, returning to the embraces of his
family. Characters from the Allingham pantheon appear to aid and hassle
Albert in his attempted elucidation.

Mike Ripley has produced a worthy successor to the
Allingham/Youngman Carter oeuvre - I enjoyed it immensely. The
development of events in his decision to complete the Youngman Carter book are
explained in an author's note and the tradition of mapping used in the previous
books is continued here.

------

Reviewer: Jennifer S.
Palmer

Mike Ripley is
the author of the award-winning ‘Angel’ series of comedy thrillers.He has won the Crime Writers Association
'Last Laugh Award' twice, first in 1989 with Angel Touch and then again in 1991 for Angels in Arms. Mike was also a scriptwriter for the BBC comedy-drama series
Lovejoy (1986–94),which
starred Ian McShane as a lovable rogue antique dealer.

For ten years Mike served as crime fiction critic for The
Daily Telegraph and on the Birmingham Post for a further eight, reviewing in
all over 950 crime novels..

In 2003 he suffered a stroke, and wrote an account of his
recovery, Surviving a Stroke, which
was published in 2006.

Currently he writes the "Getting Away With Murder"
column for the online publication Shots. He is also the series editor at
Ostara Publishing, which specialises in reprinting classic mysteries and
thrillers.

Jennifer Palmer Throughout my reading life crime
fiction has been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my 15 years as an
expatriate in the Far East, the Netherlands
& the USA
but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting
reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics
including Famous Historical Mysteries.

Thursday, 22 May 2014

The cover describes the
book as a Western but it has a wide canvas with politics and mystery as major
parts. The era is that of the US Reconstruction after the Civil War and the
assassination of Lincoln.
The Maynwarings of the title are very important family in the developing Carson City with a very
large ranch and other businesses. The head of the family is United States
Senator Barron Maynwaring who, as the book opens, has just returned home from Washington DC where he
has been dealing with all the complications of reconstructing the USA after a
highly destructive war and with the seething animosities of that war not
resolved. He is musing on his new hat called a Stetson purchased in Philadelphia from Mr.
Stetson's shop as the story begins but such frivolities are quickly forced from
his mind as events develop. His family and other dependants are described in a
rather breathless first chapter revealing that all assist in the enterprises
and are respected citizens. The women of the family are as intelligent and
tough as the males.

However, strange things are happening in Carson
City with a mysterious man called Giddeon van Thorn in
town with unlimited supplies of money to buy properties. Trouble comes through
an argument over a gambling game leading to a death and to a posse to capture
the possible killer.

Gradually the Maywarings become aware that they are being targeted in various
ways that could destroy the ranch and the family. There is a lot of action here
in traditional Western fashion and the story moves fast and furiously. Will the
Maynwarings overcome their mysterious enemies and with what peripheral damage?
Will the mysteries be unlocked? It is a page turner. Moreover there is an open
ended final chapter which suggests more may follow.
------

Reviewer: Jennifer
PalmerDigger Cartwright has written other books - thrillers like The Versailles
Conspiracy and The a House of Dark
Shadows. His nom de plume hides an industrialist and investor in the USA.

Robert ‘Digger’ Cartwright is the author of several
mystery stories, teleplays, and novels including The Maynwarings: A Game of
Chance, a mystery set in the Old West, The Versailles Conspiracy,
a modern day political thriller, Murder at the Ocean Forest, a
traditional mystery novel set in the 1940s, The House of Dark Shadows,
a psychological thriller, and Conversations on the Bench, an
inspirational and motivational compilation of life lessons. In the business
realm, he has contributed to a number of articles on a wide range of financial,
strategic planning, and policy topics and is a contributor to several
finance/economic books. He frequently contributes articles, commentaries, and
editorials focusing on current economic and political topics for the private
think tank. Mr. Cartwright’s philanthropic efforts include interests in a wide
range of causes, predominantly at the local level. He enjoys golf,
participating in charity golf tournaments, falconry, and attending WWE events.
He divides his time between Washington, D.C., South Carolina,
and Florida.

Jennifer Palmer Throughout my
reading life crime fiction has been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my 15
years as an expatriate in the Far East, the Netherlands
& the USA
but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting
reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics
including Famous Historical Mysteries.

Although riddled with the crimes of murder, blackmail, theft,
deception, and almost any other crime you care to mention this is not your
usual crime fiction whodunit.It is more
a collection of short stories that expose the worst side of human nature in
that the characters in their daily lives exhibit, jealousy, lust, bigotry,
revenge, hatred, greed and intolerance. However, thefourteen chapters are linked by a bottle of a
fine Chilean Merlot, Casillero del Diablo, which translates to, The
Devil's Cellar, the title of the book.

In
the preface Detective Jack Harvey and Sgt Harry Cole attend the scene of the
killing of a man in Sussex Avenue.
The elderly man found by his house keeper sitting in his chair with his head
bashed in- the implement of death being
a bottle of red wine broken in two and lying beside the body. With some clear
finger-prints on the bottle, identification of the killer looks to be a good
bet.

However
despite a fast identification of finger-prints, all does not go smoothly for
the police. As the investigation proceeds the police trace the path of the wine
as it was passed from person to person weaving its way through the book,
becoming a witness to the life-changing events that occur to ordinary people
within each chapter, and although the wine is never opened, the souls of the
characters are laid bare, and all too often the devil is witness to their evil
deeds and on hand to reap their souls.The book is filled with twists and turns of fate such as you could not
imagine. But not all are bad, just sometimes the Devil misses out, but moves
quickly onto his next victim.

It
is an unusual but compelling read.

------

Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Shane Marcowas
educated at Hackney Downs Grammar school
in East London and City
University, after which
he moved into accounting He has worked in radio broadcasting and acting,written modern operas and poetry.The
Devil’s Cellar is his first book

Wednesday, 21 May 2014

In 1882 there is a detective named Sidney Grice working in London. A young
lady whose father has died arrives in London
as his ward. She is March Middleton and she wants to share the work of
detection with her guardian. The pair are both interesting characters and
there are certain echoes of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in their attitudes,
behaviours and backgrounds. They have various quirks such as March's
predilection for cigarettes and gin and Sidney's
vegetarian diet and obsession with getting supplies of tea to drink. He
likes his tea black describing milk as "the mammary excretions of
cattle" and he prefers to be called a personal detective as he feels that
the term private detective should be reserved for bedrooms.

London plays a large role in
the story whether in the respectable environs of Bloomsbury or the dirty,
smelly streets in the East End slums, peopled
by beggars and thieves. March is intrepid - she is the daughter of a
doctor with whom she worked in India.
Sidney is
physically unusual and mentally agile with a great ability to reason from
disconnected scraps of evidence. They become embroiled in a murder case
where a man is accused of killing his wife. They investigate a case that
becomes extremely complex and involves more deaths and they disagree violently
about the guilt of characters.

This is described as the Gower Street Detective Book 1 so, obviously more
adventures are planned for March Middleton and Sidney Grice.

------

Reviewer: Jennifer
Palmer

Martin Kasasian was raised
in Lancashire. He has had careers as varied as
a factory hand, wine waiter, veterinary assistant, fairground worker and
dentist. He lives with his wife, in Suffolk in
the summer and in a village in Malta
in the winter.

Jennifer PalmerThroughout my reading life crime fiction has
been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my 15 years as an expatriate in the
Far East, the Netherlands
& the USA
but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting
reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics
including Famous Historical Mysteries. s.

Published by The History Press, November
2013. ISBN: 978-0-7524-7946-0

This is a work of non
fiction which investigates an unsolved murder case of 1931. The victim was
Lieutenant Hugh Chevis who was, as the title suggests, poisoned when he,
apparently ate a partridge containing strychnine. The case is complex and
inexplicable. The wife of the lieutenant also suffers poisoning symptoms but
probably ate less of the meat and therefore recovers.

A mysterious telegram to the family from Ireland causes
a lot of investigation; the origins of the partridge also require a great deal
of inquiry as do various relatives of the family. Certainly the wife, Frances,
has an interesting background which contributes to the puzzle.
The ability of pathologists comes under considerable scrutiny and the medical
habits of the privileged provide another rich seam of interest. In fact the
lifestyle of various protagonists are clearly from another era. Frances
remarries and finds that to the newspapers she will always be known as a
participant in the Case of the Poisoned a Partridge.

This is a thorough investigation of what is very much a
period drama.

------

Reviewer: Jennifer S
Palmer

Diane Janeswas born and educated in Birmingham,
but lived in various parts of the north of England
for most of her adult life, until recently moving to Devon.
Having worked in everything from mortgages to engineering, she is now a full
time author of fiction and investigative non-fiction, specialising in crime.
When still an unpublished writer, she was short listed twice for the Crime
Writers' Association Debut Dagger and in 2010 was among the quartet of
finalists in contention for the John Creasey Dagger. She is published in both
the U.K. and the U.S.A. and some
of her work has been translated into German and Japanese.

Jennifer Palmer Throughout
my reading life crime fiction has been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my
15 years as an expatriate in the Far East, the Netherlands
& the USA
but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting
reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics
including Famous Historical Mysteries.

Wednesday, 14 May 2014

Getting the procedural details right in a novel which focuses on a
police investigation has to be one of the biggest challenges which faces a
crime writer. Real-life detectives are often seen to roll their eyes
despairingly at how inaccurate fictional representations of their job can be. And
of course one of the problems is that a great deal of police work involves
endless footslogging, and sifting useful evidence out of mountains of material
which has to be collected but ultimately proves irrelevant – and neither
tramping the streets nor paperwork is exactly the stuff of gripping
storytelling. Elizabeth Haynes is more familiar with the inner workings of an
incident room than many authors; until recently she worked as an intelligence
analyst for the police. And if you don’t know what an intelligence analyst
does, you need to read Under the Silent Moon.

It’s
her fourth novel, and has the makings of the first in a series featuring a
major incident team led by DCI Louisa Smith. What sets it apart from the usual
run of action-packed police dramas is the powerful sense that this is really
how it works: not a small band of regulars who take on one investigation after
another, but a motley team of detectives, and suitably qualified lay support
staff, plus input from various specialist departments, pulled together to
investigate a specific crime, all subject to availability, budgets and outside
pressures.

Another
difference is the inclusion of documents such as witness statements, e-mails,
forensic reports and analyst’s charts, designed to allow the reader to pick
through the evidence and follow the trail along with the detectives. And in
case you were wondering, the job of the intelligence analyst is to map various
information as it comes in, create timelines and look for connections and
anomalies.

Somehow,
and I’m still not sure how, Elizabeth Haynes makes it work. It shouldn’t; the
adherence to real-time progress of the investigation, the inclusion of so much
paperwork and other detail, should slow the pace to a walk and clutter the
reader’s mind to the point of confusion. But it doesn’t. It moves swiftly, and
there’s a clear narrative line with plenty of tension. I was gripped from the
outset, as key occurrences or pieces of evidence kept popping up before my
attention had a chance to flag.

It
helps that the action shifts away from the police and to witnesses or suspects
from time to time, so that the reader always knows a little more than the
detectives. Haynes’s sharp eye for character is also a major plus point;
despite the wealth of names and minor players, it’s always plain who we’re
meant to follow. And the leading characters have lives and feelings which
impact on the investigation in some way.

It’s
a fine balancing act between creating a story with enough drama and action to
hold the attention, and describing what would really happen when two suspicious
deaths occur in the same village within hours of each other. Elizabeth Haynes
doesn’t falter.

------

Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Elizabeth Haynes is
a police intelligence analyst. She started writing fiction in 2006 thanks to
the annual challenge of National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) and the encouragement
of the creative writing courses at West Dean College. She lives in a village
near Maidstone, Kent, with her husband and son.

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen,
and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but
never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher
for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now
burgeoning. She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with
books, about half of them crime fiction.

Tuesday, 13 May 2014

In addition to reviews, interviews, reports on conferences
and Mystery People events, competitions and Mary Mystery (agony aunt), the
Mystery People monthly e-zine also contains articles on Forgotten Authors,
Golden Age Authors and many other crime fiction related topics.Recently, Lynne Patrick (former publisher)
has been contributing articles on authors who have gone before their time. It has been suggested to me that maybe I
could post some of these to my blogspot, so here is the one that appeared in
the May issue.Should anyone like a
complimentary copy of the May issue, or any previous issue, please email me
lizziehayes@yahoo.com

Gone Before Their Time

Janie Bolitho (1 January 1950 - 3 October 2002)

By Lynne Patrick

It’s something of a cliché among pundits that authors follow an eclectic working life before, and often during, their writing career, though to the majority of other writers this comes as no surprise. Even among regularly
published novelists, earning a living is frequently a separate endeavour from writing, and can take many different forms.

Cornish crime writer Janie Bolitho worked as a psychiatric nurse, debt collector, tour guide and bookmaker’s clerk in the years before her D I Roper police procedural series allowed her to become a full-time writer. She was mainly published by Allison and Busby, and thus best known to library borrowers. She also attracted the attention of audio book company Isis, and much of her work still exists on tape and CD.

Janie was a West Country woman born and bred, and Cornwall is the setting for much of her work. The books are remarkable for her portrayal of the landscape which was so familiar to her; they fall broadly into the ‘cosy’ sub-genre in that she sidesteps the blood and gore, but there is plenty of action and atmosphere, and they move along at a cracking pace.

I met Janie Bolitho just once, when she attended a weekend workshop I was running in north

Cornwall in the summer of 1996. By then she already had a handful of the Roper police procedurals under her belt, but she still felt she had a lot to learn about the craft of writing, and was eager to build on the knowledge she had acquired.

Janie was keen to contribute to the workshop, and modest about her achievements, though willing to share her experience with the rest of the group, who were understandably intrigued to have a published novelist among their number.She was about to embark on a second series, this time featuring a female protagonist and‘accidental’ sleuth: young widow Rose Trevelyan, an artist and photographer who has retreated to Cornwall for a quiet life after the death of her husband. Since the topic of the weekend workshop was Women Writing For and About Women, I hope it’s fair to say that Janie took something useful away with her.

Her writing career was destined to last only ten years before breast cancer intervened, but they were prolific ones. As well as the twelve Roper novels and seven in the Trevelyan series, she also wrote a handful of more ambitious standalones, dubbed romantic thrillers and published by Constable; and as Jodie Sinclair, she indulged her darker side in a couple of novels published by Piatkus.

When she died she left behind an unusual memorial. A keen football fan, she had been a sponsor of Plymouth Parkway FC, and a year after her death their ground was renamed Bolitho Park in her honour.

Twelve years after her death, remarkably little is known about her life, so her continued popularity might be
regarded as something of a surprise. But thanks to new technology her books are largely still available, some in print, others as eBooks.

Janie’s many fans have set up a website and blog in her honour: http://janiebolitho.info/

Lynne Patrickhas been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen,
and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but
never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher
for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now
burgeoning. She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with
books, about half of them crime fiction.

How to create a new plot
after 22 previous Kinsey Millhone novels was no deterrent to the author who
wasted no time in solving the important murders and tackling the problem of the
homeless. In addition, a dilemma for Kinsey: What to do with more
than a half-million dollars she inherits from a homeless man who dies on the
beach, leaving her an
inheritance in his will.

A scurrilous PI turns out to be a murder victim, the apparent result of a
robbery gone bad, leaving Kinsey another mystery to solve. It turns out
the PI is part of the plot, related to the death of the homeless man. As
the tale unfolds, there is just one additional thing for Kinsey to solve, and
that is, what to do with the money: distribute to the man's three children
(despite the fact that he had disinherited them); keep it; or find some other
use for the moolah in
accordance with his perceived wishes.

The novel is well-plotted, but weighed down with all kinds of extraneous
fill-in material, e.g., baking, Kinsey's love life (or lack thereof),
introduction of former lovers, and one with a tangential relationship to the
murdered PI. Otherwise, "W" is the usual smooth effort, and
another letter bites the dust.
------Reviewer:Ted Feit

Sue Taylor Grafton was born 24 April 1940 in Louisville, Kentucky.
USA.She is a contemporary American author of
detective novels. She is best known as the author of the 'alphabet series'
featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California.
She is published in 28 countries and 26 languages—including Estonian,
Bulgarian, and Indonesian.

www.suegrafton.com/

Ted and Gloria Feit
live in Long Beach, NY,
a few miles outside New York City.
For 26 years, Gloria was the manager of a medium-sized litigation firm in
lower Manhattan.
Her husband, Ted, is an attorney and former stock analyst, publicist and
writer/editor for, over the years, several daily, weekly and monthly
publications. Having always been avid mystery readers, and since they're
now retired, they're able to indulge that passion. Their reviews appear
online as well as in three print publications in the UK and US. On a more personal
note: both having been widowed, Gloria and Ted have five children and nine
grandchildren between them.

Monday, 12 May 2014

On the first day of Wimbledon, newly promoted Detective Inspector Angela
Costello’s is called to the discovery of a body on the lawn, and not just any
lawn.A long time tennis fan Angela
instantly recognises the body of that of tennis Croatian champion Petar Belic,
more recently a tennis coach.

As Angela interviews the people surrounding Petar she
quickly becomes aware that there are many suspects.Petar had been seeing a publicist Lavinia
Bannister, a fiery and tempestuous woman. But further investigation reveals
that Petar had recently been seeing his estranged wife and several sources say
that he was hoping for reconciliation.There was also speculation of financials problems with his business
partner Danny Moore.And Stewart
Bickerstaff whom Petar had been coaching – was all well in that relationship?

Feeling very aware of how under scrutiny she is from not
only her bosses but also her immediate colleagues - she after all only recently
promoted and needs to find her way through that minefield of colleagues she was
once on a par with, but is now is in charge of, Angela picks her way warily,
particularly with colleagues who decide to test her. Not an easy path, but she does have husband Patrick
to keep her level headed.

This was for me a wonderful find. It had all the hallmarks
of a village murder, but as we all know London
is just made up of a collection of villages.

As Angela picks her way carefully through
the lies, subterfuge and miss-information she eventually reaches the truth.This first novel is highly recommended and I
eagerly await the next.

------

Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Elizabeth Flynn is
a Londoner of Anglo-Irish parentage. An ex-actress she currently works in a
hospital. However she has always written and has a particular interest in crime
fiction. For several years she has also been a keen tennis fan and is very
happy that her first novel is a murder mystery set in the tennis world.

About Me

From an early age I have been a lover of crime fiction. Discovering like minded people at my first crime conference at St Hilda’s Oxford in 1997, I was delighted when asked to join a new group for the promotion of female crime writers. In 1998 I took over the running of the group, which I did for the next thirteen years.
During that time I organised countless events promoting crime writers and in particular new writers. But apart from the sheer joy of reading, ‘I actually love books, not just the writing, the plot or the characters, but the sheer joy of holding a book has never abated for me. The greatest gift of my life has been the ability to read'.